9 People Share How They Coped With the Crushing Pain of Losing a Parent

All products are independently selected by our editors. If you buy something, we may earn an affiliate commission.

It may be inevitable that most of us will lose our parents, but that doesn’t mean we don’t dread the prospect. I certainly did, especially after my father’s health began to decline last summer. As much as I tried to manage my anticipatory grief and prepare myself to lose him, when he died in September, the shock of it slammed into me with the weight and force of the most powerful and frigid wave. I was left shaking and sputtering, casting about for anything to hold onto to find my footing again.

As a writer and longtime book editor, I reflexively turned to words and stories in those initial surreal, grief-stricken weeks, and clung to them like a life raft. I devoured many breathtaking memoirs about loss, including Rob Delaney’s A Heart That Works, Wave by Sonali Deraniyagala, and Notes on Grief by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. The worse the tragedy the author experienced, the more I was drawn to their story. I hoped they’d offer solutions and a road map: Tell me how to do this, how to mourn, how to get through.

I craved some sort of clear, proven step-by-step path that I could follow precisely to get to the other side as quickly as possible, though I soon realized it doesn’t work that way. There’s, alas, no one-size-fits-all model. There are about as many ways to grieve as there are ways to lose loved ones. Beyond utilizing the reliable and scientifically researched stalwarts that we know to be helpful—exercise, social support, therapy, and, the big one, time—everyone’s coping mechanisms will be very different.

The trick is to figure out the particular and utterly unique combination of grace, self-care, ritual, and reflection that works for you. That’s a highly personal process, of course, but learning how others have coped can offer hope and inspiration. Here, nine people share what eased their pain and brought them comfort in the aftermath of losing a parent.

I had to get creative with my coping strategies.

“When both my parents died within eleven months of each other, I pulled out all the stops to get help. I had sessions with a traditional therapist, a shaman, and a witch who focused on ‘flower-essence therapies.’ I would have done or tried anything, as my finances allowed, to help me deal with my grief, which left me with panic attacks and an almost complete creative block. Every time I sat down to work on my next novel, I was frozen and anxious. That’s when I turned to hypnosis, which was surprisingly helpful.

During the sessions, my hypnotherapist would guide me into a trance-like state (the kind that occurs when you’re driving a long distance or zoning out in front of the TV) and talk me through the process of gently releasing my grief. She’d record our conversations and I would listen to them every night as I went to sleep. This allowed my subconscious to soak up the idea that it was okay to let go of my pain and panic; to feel safe and happy enough to be creative and get my work done. It’s been almost four years since my dad died and three years since I lost my mom, and I recently completed and sold my novel, which feels like a bookend to my grief in some ways. I know they would be proud of me for trudging through my sadness and finding a way to thrive again.” —M.P.L.

Death helped me see that our loved ones are never gone.

“After losing my mom, I learned to brace for the random grief triggers that would catch me off guard, like seeing something in a store that reminds me of her. But what’s come as a surprise, a good one, are the positive triggers…little signs out of nowhere that I take to be evidence of her presence. When she died, I selected a T-shirt for her to be buried in that said “Nan’s Love Bugs” and listed each of her eight grandkids alongside a little ladybug. The week I settled into my first new place after she passed, I spotted two ladybugs. Recently, I was sitting in my car having a difficult phone conversation and a butterfly (my mom’s fave) flew across my windshield. On a drive to work not too long ago, I noticed a bright red cardinal flying alongside my car for a bit. My mom loved cardinals. Naysayers will argue these are all coincidences. I choose to live in a world where no one ever truly leaves us. So I move forward happily anticipating when and how my mom will say hello next.” —K.C.

I had to accept that grief is complicated—and so was my dad.

“When my dad died last spring, I quickly came to realize I didn’t have to pretend he was some perfect parent in order to mourn him. We’d had a good relationship for years, but that was all me—I did a ton of therapy and let go of a lot from my childhood. I think if I had tried to grieve some ideal, imaginary version of him, I wouldn’t have gotten very far.

Then, eight months after he was gone, I learned something he’d never intended for me to find out: He’d been previously married at 18 and I have an older half-sister. Realizing he’d kept this from me opened an entirely new chasm of grief. Suddenly, everything about our relationship was cast in a new light, and I had a slew of questions I’d never be able to ask him. It underscored, again, what a complicated man he was, which meant accepting my grief would be too.

The reality is that my dad was not easy to grow up with; his death doesn’t change that. But there is so much I miss about him too. I’ve learned to embrace that two things can be true: My dad was a difficult person, and I loved him dearly. There’s a comfort in understanding there’s no contradiction in that.” —Marsea N.

Losing a parent helped me find myself.

“I’m the youngest daughter of a Black man born in 194srcs America. My parents constantly emphasized that education and professional success were the best protection against a society that was indifferent to me, at best. I didn’t rebel at their strictures; I reveled in staying on the path they laid out for me: A top-notch university for undergrad, followed by grad school, followed by a lucrative career and an ideal domestic life worthy of being showcased in Ebony magazine. And then my father died within six weeks of my learning of his cancer diagnosis. I was devastated and traumatized—I wrote an email resigning from a prestigious law firm while my father’s body was still being loaded into the ambulance. It stayed in my drafts folder for another three years. It took that long to release the expectations my parents implicitly and overtly communicated.

As a daddy’s girl, without my father walking the earth, it all began to seem pointless. I continued to move like an automaton through my own life, and it took years for the gears to stop running on their own. Ironically, by letting it all go, I gained…everything. A decade after my dad’s death, I now have a great new profession more aligned with my passions, a burgeoning career as a writer, a loving husband, and a baby boy named after his grandfather. And I now know I didn’t let it all go. I kept the memories, my father’s unwavering support, and, most of all, his love. I’m still a daddy’s girl—but now I’m also my own woman.” —Shaunna E.

Hearing stories about my father has kept him alive.

“My dad passed away eight years ago from a long chronic illness, just a few weeks after I told him I was pregnant with my first child. I believe he held on until he felt like I was truly settled. In the years since, the thing that has softened the sharp edges of my grief the most is listening to stories about him that I’d never heard before. A few years ago I started working on a project that he had left unfinished, research into our family’s Sicilian history. Along the way, I got to interview family members and friends that he talked to when he was searching for our roots. All of them had a funny anecdote about my dad that I never would have heard. Collecting these stories has kept him alive for me and given me new ways to share who he was with my three young kids. It’s a gift to feel like I’m still able to get to know him and learn about him, even after he’s gone.” —Jo P.

The hole is always there, but I got better at climbing out.

“It’s been 12 years and I still wake up some days shocked that my mother doesn’t exist in this world, that she doesn’t know my kids, that she never got to see Hamilton! When she died, I understood that I would be horribly sad, but that felt like something to manage: I would mourn her and then I would move on with life because I am uniquely suited to just “get on” with things. I put “sad” in a box and most days that worked for me. But missing someone is much harder to compartmentalize. All my tricks to deal with sadness—exercise, faking meditation, watching matinees in a dark movie theater—don’t lessen my longing for my mom and how much I still want to call her, even after all these years, when something important, or funny, or ridiculous happens.

A friend who lost a parent referred to this—chronic, stubborn—part of the grief as a black hole right by your bed. You wake up and remember your loved one is gone, and you tumble right into the hole. Then the next day you do it again, and again, and again. Over time, you learn to crawl out faster or to sidestep it altogether. But the hole never goes away. And some days, no matter how much time has passed, you will still fall in. When that happens, I close my eyes, give myself permission to feel whatever I feel, and take deep breaths, trusting that when I’m ready—when I’ve fortified myself with happy memories of her or thinking of a song she loved—I’ll be able to climb out again.” —Kara B.

I found peace between serves.

“When I found out that my dad died suddenly, I was just coming home from a tennis match. As captain, I was in charge of inputting the scores and was still clutching the scorecard when I got the devastating news. An hour later, I was still holding the piece of paper because somehow letting it go meant I had moved past the actual moment that divided my father being on this earth and not. For me, the strongest feature of grief was this sort of paralysis. For weeks, I sat on the floor of my husband’s home office, completely avoiding life beyond our walls until he came to me one day and gently said, ‘I really think you should find a way to play tennis today.’

I had taken up the sport to have something of my own after having four kids in seven years, and it quickly became a passion (or probably more accurate to say, an obsession). As much as the idea of returning to the courts after my dad died was, at first, incomprehensible, it turned out to be the solace I needed. I discovered new and profound peace in the seconds between serving the ball and my opponent’s return. The rhythm of the game, and the focus it requires, was at least a temporary respite from the crashing waves of grief. There’s also the camaraderie. It’s a key ingredient in both the sport and managing loss.

I have a dear friend who is a few stops ahead of me on this very sad, unending path. She has been an invaluable source of support, wisdom, and empathy. She also happens to be my tennis partner. We both look for our loved ones everywhere—in our dreams, in signs, and on the court. In a match not long ago, she hit a ball, which landed on the top of the net, where it sat frozen for a second, seemingly deciding which way to roll. And then it dropped into our opponent’s service box, winning us the point. I turned around to see my friend smiling as she mouthed, “Thanks, Mom.” —Clare Ansel

I took pride in my grief.

“It was important for me to recognize how my grief was going to show up when my mom died. Was I going to cry? (I did.) Was I going to wallow? (I did not.) Was I going to be paralyzed into inaction? (Nope.) I gave myself permission to experience whatever emotion bubbled up: Sadness that she was gone. Sorrow that I wish we’d been closer at the end. Relief that she was no longer suffering. And pride. That was a big one. My mother entrusted me with handling everything that would come up as she declined and after she died: her finances, her estate, managing relationships with the family, etc. It felt good to be purposeful, useful, and necessary—and to be the one to deliver her eulogy, which allowed me to honor her and verbalize my love for her. All of this was healing in a way I didn’t expect. In the end, I felt like I served her well and that she would have been proud of me, her only son. I’ve held onto that feeling and it has sustained me in her absence.” —I.K.W.

I had to believe I would come out of it.

My former therapist was perplexed when I didn’t call her after my mother died. She had helped me through many things, but for some reason I felt like I needed to process this life event—that I had long dreaded—on my own. I realized therapy was the obvious choice, but I also knew my healing would require more. So I stayed open to alternative ideas that might help, including what I called the three w’s: worship (a.k.a. prayer), workouts, and weeping. I also saw an energy healer named Terry. I ate my fair share of ice cream. I said yes when loved ones wanted to bring me comfort, like the time a caring girlfriend took me to hear Henry Louis Gates Jr. speak about grieving.

Above all else, I was kind to myself and took it all slowly. I reminded myself that I’m resilient and that, while I wouldn’t come out of the grieving process unchanged, I would come out of it. And, seven years later, that proved to be true. There will always be a stream of sorrow flowing under my feet. There will be times when my toes dip in, and I’m taken back to relive the pain. But most often, my feet will stay hovered above, lifted by my mother’s love that will never die. —Holly C.